Over at Montreal’s Gazette, my friend Arthur Kaptainis recently wrote about the big screens at Quebec’s Lanaudière festival. His encounter with the screens, and their simultaneous images from concerts, seems to have left him perplexed. “I can say unambiguously that I am not sure what to think,” he said.

Kaptainis continued, asking a very pertinent question: “But what will be gained? An opinion on the dye job of a second violin? The addition of big screens leads me to recast the question posed by Ronald Reagan in the 1980 U.S. presidential debates: ‘Are you better off than you were a year ago?’ Maybe by next year I will have an answer.”

Like my colleague, I’m still undecided as to whether big screens will prove to be a good thing for music. (I haven’t seen the screens at Lanaudière; but I did see them in Vancouver’s Orpheum Theatre, when the Vancouver Symphony first introduced them.) Yet I can think of several ways in which this technology might be a good thing – and for this reason, I harbour some optimism on the subject. Here are three ways that the screens could make us “better off” (so to speak).

First, when a soloist is presented with an orchestra – a pianist, a violinist, whatever – there’s often a contingent of fans in the audience who have come specifically to hear and see that particular artist. Surely they would be delighted by close-up shots of their idol, bravely essaying the evening’s concerto. Big screens can be particularly helpful for pianists, whose hands cannot readily be viewed by half the audience. Seeing what a soloist is doing, close up, adds to the excitement.

Second, conductors are sometimes fascinating people to watch. But in an orchestral concert, they stand with their backs to the hall, and much of their art of communication is invisible to the audience. A camera at the back of the orchestra, pointing straight at the conductor, can change all that, offering the audience direct frontal contact with the maestro’s interpretation.

Third, big screens could bring the audience closer to the orchestra itself. Orchestral musicians toil away in an anonymity that does not do their talents justice. I’ve been attending Toronto Symphony concerts for years, but I must confess that there aren’t more than a dozen TSO players I would recognize if I passed them walking down Yonge Street. These artists deserve to be better known – and big-screen projections could help make that happen.

Big screens at orchestral concerts haven’t caught on like wildfire, the way surtitles did in opera, a generation ago. In part, this is because the technology is much more expensive than projected opera titles. Also, the placement of the screens remains a problem. On one occasion when I saw the technology tried out Toronto’s Roy Thomson Hall, the best that could be managed was a pair of modest-looking screens, far to the left and right of the stage.

So what would it cost to install a gigantic screen, suspended directly above the orchestra, in RTH? A million dollars? Perhaps it would be worth it.

Leave a Reply.

Eatock Daily

I'm a composer and writer based in Toronto – and this is my classical music blog, Eatock Daily.

Here you'll find musings and meditations, some reviews and the occasional rant – as well as some of the articlesI've written for Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper, the Houston Chronicle, the Kansas City Star and other publications.

Those readers who are Canadian by persuasion may notice the little joke in the name “Eatock Daily.” Readers from other countries need not be concerned about it.

Index

Blog Counter

In 2014, the Eatock Daily blog received 10,821 hits, from 85 different countries. How will 2015 compare? The counter below was started on January 1, 2015. It shows all visits to this page in the current year (so far).